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Rosnawati (40 years old) is a housewife who also actively cultivates a 1-hectare corn field with her husband. She is one of the REAF II participants from Omu Village. The main source of income for Rosnawati’s family is corn farming, so they are eager to learn proper corn cultivation techniques, hoping that by learning and applying them, their harvests can improve. This desire led Rosnawati to join the REAF II program by ADRA Indonesia.
Rosnawati and her husband have been cultivating corn for years, but they never achieved satisfying results. This was because their farming methods were simply based on the habits of other farmers in the area—without trying to learn the proper cultivation techniques or understanding what Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are.
“For me, growing corn was just a routine,” she admitted. “I never paid attention to the type of seeds I was using. If I found seeds at a cheaper price, I would just go for it. I also didn’t know that fertilizing should be done at least twice during the growing season. As a result, my yields were never satisfying. If I could get 1 ton of corn from planting 9 kg of seeds, I would already feel grateful. Usually, the harvest was only around 500 kg from that amount of seeds.”
However, the learning sessions in the field schools and the various activities conducted by the REAF II project on proper corn cultivation techniques opened her eyes. She realized there were many things she had been doing incorrectly in her farming practices.
After attending seven field school sessions, Rosnawati began making changes in her corn cultivation practices. She started to apply several good practices, such as maintaining proper plant spacing of 20:70 cm and 80:40 cm, as recommended by GAP. She also began paying attention to the type of seeds used. Although high-quality seeds are more expensive, Rosnawati believed it is better to use superior seeds in smaller quantities, as they produce better results compared to planting a lot of inferior seeds.
Additionally, she has started fertilizing her crops twice per season and pruning the lower leaves. Although not all practices have been fully improved yet, Rosnawati has already felt the positive impact.
“Alhamdulillah, now that I use Pioneer 88 and NK 212 seeds, my corn harvest has increased significantly. My latest harvest reached 2 tons from 9 kg of seeds. We have never achieved such a good yield before. Although it’s still far from the ideal national standard, we are very grateful and definitely motivated to keep improving.”
Rosnawati now has big dreams. She hopes her yields will eventually meet or even exceed the national standards.
“Alhamdulillah, after ADRA came to Omu Village, we as farmers have a much better understanding of how to take care of our crops. Moving forward, my husband and I plan to continue improving our corn farming practices. We will carefully choose the seeds we use, apply organic compost or manure before planting, and so on.”
On this occasion, Rosnawati also expressed her gratitude to ADRA Indonesia and hopes that ADRA will continue to support Omu Village in the future.
